Visitor Welcome Center presents nature, red in tooth and claw, a new installation by Emily Marchand. Continuing her use of organic materials and processes, Marchand offers a reflection into our precarious relationship to environmental degradation, food scarcity, and survival. Images of bones, knots, tools, matches, seeds, clouds, and the sun carefully arrange themselves into a triangular edifice. At the base sits a black ceramic basin holding a collection of ceramic sculptures and tiles in a salt water bath. Over the course of the exhibition, the piece erodes, affectively oscillating between monument and memorial. Her work insists on the possibility of life within decay and selvage, where transformation depends on vulnerability and hopeful play, and where tomorrow’s promise ripples through the undercurrent of a fragile present.

—

Emily Marchand (b. Sacramento, CA) works with food, textiles, and sculpture to explore ideas of survivalism, preservation, and the decentralization of humans in relation to ecology and nature. She works with earthen materials that have transformative abilities, such as clay, salt, fabrics, and metals. Marchand received her BA from UCLA and her MFA from California Institute of the Arts. Selected projects include homeLA, Genius Loci at Setareh Gallery (Düsseldorf, DE), Leaning Tower of Pisa at DXIX (Venice, CA), soft ammunition at NowSpace (Los Angeles, CA), and Artists + Institutions at MAK Center (Los Angeles, CA).